Jephthah's Daughter Devoted.
REMEMBER that the law and the whole Old Testament condemns human sacrifices. If Jephthah had done so horrible a thing, instead of being commended in Heb. 11 : 32, he would have been cursed and condemned as all other Israelites were who so far departed from the law of God as to be guilty of this heathen abomination. See 1 Kings 16 : 3; 2 Kings 21 : 6; 2 Chron. 33 : 2, 6, where Ahaz and Manasseh are condemned for doing what some claim Jephthah did. "But the entreaty of the daughter, that he would grant her two months' time, in order that she might lament her virginity upon the mountains with her friends, would have been marvelously out of keeping with the account that she was to be put to death as a sacrifice. "To mourn one's virginity does not mean to mourn because one has to die a virgin, but because one has to live and remain a virgin."—Keil and Delitzsch—Com., in loco. If she had been mourning on account of her youth and premature death, "it would be altogether opposed to human nature that a child, who had so soon to die, should make use of a temporary respite to forsake her father altogether." "It would, no doubt, be a reasonable thing that she should ask permission to enjoy life for two months longer before she was put to death; but that she should only think of bewailing her virginity, when a sacrificial death was in prospect, would be contrary to all the ordinary feelings of the human heart." "Inasmuch as the history lays special emphasis upon her bewailment of her virginity, this must have stood in some peculiar relation to the vow"—so much so that virginity, instead of death, was meant by the vow. "And this is confirmed by the expression, to bewail her virginity 'upon the mountains.' If life had been the question, the same tears might have been shed at home. But her lamentations were devoted to her virginity, and such lamentations could not be uttered in town, and in the presence of men. Modesty required the solitude of the mountains for these. The virtuous heart of the maiden does not open itself in the ears of all; but only in sacred silence does it pour out its lamentations of love." "And so, again, the still further clause in the fulfillment of the vow, 'and she knew no man,' is not in harmony with a sacrificial death. This clause would add nothing to the description in that case, since it was already known that she was a virgin. The words only gain their proper sense if we connect them with the previous clause, he 'did with her according to the vow which he vowed,' and understand them as describing what the daughter did in fulfillment of the vow. The father fulfilled his vow upon her, and she knew no man; i. e., he fulfilled the vow through the fact that she knew no man . . . in a life-long virginity." Auberlen's remarks, alone, ought to cast grave doubts upon the "human sacrifice" interpretation. "The history of Jephthah's daughter," he says, "would hardly have been thought worth preserving in the Scriptures, if the maiden had been really offered in sacrifice; for, in that case, the event would have been reduced, at the best, into a mere family history, without any theocratic significance, though, in truth, it would rather have been an anti-theocratic abomination, according to Deut. 12 : 31 (cf. chapter 18 : 9; Lev. 18 : 21; 20 : 1-5). Jephthah's act would, in that case, have stood upon the same platform as the incest of Lot (Gen. 19 : 30), and would owe its adoption into the canon simply to genealogical considerations, or others of a similar kind. "But the very opposite is the case here; and, if from the conclusion of the whole narrative in chapter 11 : 39, 40, the object of it is supposed to be simply to explain the origin of the feast that was held in honor of Jephthah's daughter, even this would tell against the ordinary view. In the eye of the law the whole thing would still remain an abomination, and the canonical Scriptures would not stoop to relate and beautify an institution so directly opposed to the law."—Quoted by Keil and Delitzsch. "But burnt offerings, that is to say, bleeding, in which the victim was slaughtered and burnt upon the altar, could only be offered upon the lawful altar at the tabernacle, or before the ark, through the medium of the Levitical priests, unless the sacrifice itself had been occasioned by some extraordinary manifestation of God; and that we cannot for a moment think here." See Lev. 1 : 5; 2 : 9, 16; 3 : 5, 13, 16; 4 : 7, 10, 14, 18, 19, 26, 29, 31, for law of burning on the altar. "But is it credible that a priest or the priesthood should have consented to offer a sacrifice upon the altar of Jehovah, which was denounced in the law as the greatest abomination of the heathen? This difficulty cannot be set aside by assuming that Jephthah put his daughter to death, and burned her upon some secret altar, without the assistance and mediation of a priest; for such an act would not have been described by the prophetic historian as a fulfillment of the vow that he would offer a burnt-offering to the Lord, simply because it would not have been a sacrifice offered to Jehovah at all, but a sacrifice slaughtered to Moloch." So it would have been recorded if the priests, as in the cases of Ahaz and Manasseh, had helped him offer his daughter as a burnt offering.—Keil and Delitzsch's Com. on Judges and Ruth, pp. 392-394. "During the 'two months' which intervened between Jephthah's return and the supposed sacrifice, it is scarcely credible that the priests should not have interposed to prevent the barbarous deed, or that Jephthah himself should not have 'inquired of the Lord,' respecting a release from his vow."—Haley. (See release from vows in Lev. 27 : 1-8, etc.) One of the moral nature that Jephthah was, certainly would have been prevented from the barbarous deed by that moral insight into right and wrong which is the invariable power of such souls as spoken of in Heb. 11 : 32. As did David, on the impulse of the moment under passion, a good man may do a bad thing or deed; but not when in the religious state of mind and with the time for consideration, as was the case with Jephthah. In verse 29, it is positively affirmed that Jephthah was in "the Spirit of the Lord" when he made the vow. As well believe God could cause sin as to, therefore, believe Jephthah burnt his daughter. Verse 31 of Judges may be rendered, (a) "Shall surely be the Lord's, or I will offer it up for a burnt offering." Dr. Davidson, an eminent Hebraist, says: "It cannot be denied that the conjunction 'vav' may be rendered or."—Introd. Old Test., Vol. 1, p. 476. Dr. Robinson says: "Gesenius, in 1 Kings 18 : 27, . . . himself admits it is a disjunctive."—Ges. Lex. Heb., p. 266; Ges. Thesaur., p. 679. (b) Dr. Randolph, J. Kimchi and Auberlen render: "Shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer to him a burnt offering." Dr. Davidson says: "We admit that the construction is grammatically possible; for examples justify it, as Gesenius shows." "Either of these translations removes the difficulty." The objection to this last rendering—that the Hebrew is the dative instead of the accusative—is groundless. For there are exceptions to the rules governing all languages. For example, the Greek in Acts 2 : 38, where instead of hekastos anton—each of them—we have hekastos humon—"each" in third person, and "of you," in second person, while the verb baptisato is third person. Were we to attempt to translate this by the rules of grammar, we would have something like: "Be baptized each of them of (or which are of) you." But translators so translate this as to make "of you"—second person—agree with hekastos—each, which is in the third person. But in the case before us no such abruptness is necessary to render, "I will offer to him a burnt offering;" for Gesenius clearly shows (see Heb. Gram., sec. 138, 2) that there are not a few exceptions where the accusative is equivalent to the meaning or use of the dative. I believe this rendering—"offer to him"—is the true rendering. Some other renderings need correction in this connection. In verse 39, we should render, "she knew no man and it [i. e., to vow daughters to perpetual virginity.—Ex. 38 : 8; 1 Sam. 2 : 22, in ministering at the tabernacle] was a law in Israel." Verse 40: "From year to year the daughters in Israel came to celebrate [or praise] the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite," etc. Gesenius defines, tanah—rendered by our version "lament"—"to praise, rehearse, celebrate." So do professors Harper (Heb. Voc., p. 106), Young, Fuerst, and others. In chapter 11 : 5 our version renders it rehearse, instead of "lament." The Hebrew verbs for lament are: anah, nahah, saphad, qun; and to these may be added others, as, bakah. The English reader would naturally infer that the word rendered by our version "lament" is one of the same meaning, if not the same word, as the one rendered "bewail" in verse 37. But the word there rendered is bakah, which really means "bewail." Jephthah's daughter being sacrificed to the Lord by perpetual virginity, to minister at the tabernacle—she was his only child (verse 34)—cut off all hope of the perpetuation of his family. Besides, the sacrifice of all hope of ever becoming a mother was the greatest sacrifice which a daughter of Israel could make. Because of this, there was the bewailing of her virginity (verse 37). Had the wailing been because of her death, it would more naturally read, "Bewail my death." Besides, who ever heard or read of such an ante-mortem funeral! The noble act of self-sacrifice to the Lord which verse 40 records, was celebrated by "the daughters of Israel" going "yearly to celebrate [or praise] the daughter of Jephthah." But how unnatural, how absurd, to suppose that they "went yearly" to praise the daughter of Jephthah for helping to commit the fiendish crime of human sacrifice! There is every philological, historical, and common-sense evidence against any such crime as human sacrifice in the case of Jephthah's daughter. To remove the supposition of his offering his daughter as a burnt offering, it is only necessary to show that a different translation and interpretation can be fairly made. Our rules in chapter 2, and the law condemning such an abomination, compel us to adopt the position that Jephthah did not offer a human sacrifice. So Bush, Cassel, Delitzsch, Keil, Grotius, Lange, the Kimchis, Le Clerc, Lilienthal, Hengstenberg, Saalschutz, Schudt, Houbigant, Waterland, Levi Ben Gersom, Bechai, Drusius, de Dieu, Bishop Hall, Dr. Hales, Adam Clarke, Richter, and many other eminent Biblical scholars, agree that Judges does not say he sacrificed his daughter; and they agree that he did not do so. See Haley's Alleged Discrep., p. 239, and others. Only her virginity was mourned. Inasmuch as she was his only child, the only hope of his posterity; inasmuch as, in the estimation of a Jew, to have no posterity and remain a virgin was a great loss, there was much wailing. She was probably devoted to perpetual service in the tabernacle. See Ex. 38 : 8; 1 Sam. 1 : 2; 2 : 22. It "was a custom in Israel" (Judges 11 : 39) to mourn her virginity. It is, then, clear that there is not a shadow of justification for the charge that the Bible sanctions human sacrifice.—Old Testament Ethics Vindicated.